Irit Dinur () is an Israeli computer scientist. She is professor of computer science at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

. In 2024 she was appointed a permanent faculty member in the School of Mathematics of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

. Her research is in foundations of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and in

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

, and especially in probabilistically checkable proofs and

hardness of approximation In computer science, hardness of approximation is a field that studies the algorithmic complexity of finding near-optimal solutions to optimization problems. Scope Hardness of approximation complements the study of approximation algorithms by pro ...

Biography

Irit Dinur earned her doctorate in 2002 from the school of computer science in

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

, advised by Shmuel Safra; her thesis was entitled ''On the Hardness of Approximating the Minimum Vertex Cover and The Closest Vector in a Lattice''. She joined the Weizmann Institute after visiting the

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

, and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Dinur published in 2006 a new proof of the

PCP theorem In computational complexity theory, the PCP theorem (also known as the PCP characterization theorem) states that every decision problem in the NP complexity class has probabilistically checkable proofs ( proofs that can be checked by a randomiz ...

that was significantly simpler than previous proofs of the same result.

Awards and recognition

In 2007, she was given the

Michael Bruno Michael Bruno may refer to: * Michael Bruno (economist) (1932–1996), Israeli economist * Michael Bruno (entrepreneur), American entrepreneur * Kalani Das (born Michael Bruno), American percussionist, author and educator * Michael-Bruno ...

Memorial Award in Computer Science by Yad Hanadiv. She was a plenary speaker at the 2010

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

. In 2012, she won the Anna and Lajos Erdős Prize in Mathematics, given by the

Israel Mathematical Union The Israel Mathematical Union (IMU) () is an association of professional mathematicians in Israel. It is a member of the European Mathematical Society and the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and has reciprocity memb ...

. She was the William Bentinck-Smith Fellow at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 2012–2013. In 2019, she won the

Gödel Prize The Gödel Prize is an annual prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science, given jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Inter ...

for her paper "The PCP theorem by gap amplification".EATCS 2019 Gödel Prize
retrieved 2019-09-11.

References

External links

Personal HomePage

Turing Centennial Post 1: Irit Dinur
guest post on

Luca Trevisan Luca Trevisan (21 July 1971 – 19 June 2024) was an Italian professor of computer science at Bocconi University in Milan. His research area was theoretical computer science, focusing on randomness, cryptography, probabilistically checkable p ...

's blog "in theory" concerning Dinur's experiences as a lesbian academic {{DEFAULTSORT:Dinur, Irit Academic staff of Weizmann Institute of Science Institute for Advanced Study faculty Living people Tel Aviv University alumni 21st-century Israeli mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians Year of birth missing (living people) Gödel Prize laureates Erdős Prize recipients